Siesta at the botanical gardens by Mandy Macdonald

 


Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer and musician living in Aberdeen who is trying to make sense of the 21st and earlier centuries. Her poems can be seen in many anthologies and journals – most recently Noon (Arachne, 2019), Multiverse (Shoreline of Infinity, 2019), The Curlew (Spring 2019) and The Poet’s Republic(Issue 7, 2019). Mandy writes in the strong hope that poetry can change the world, even just a little. When not writing, she makes music and gardens.


 

 

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

Siesta at the botanical gardens

 

Leafstorm of lorikeets,

a shock of green noise,

rips up the sky.

Starling chatter

of schoolchildren,

 

yellow-capped,

on the lawn. Birdless,

the bamboo glade rustles

 

and frets. Glistening silky husks

drop, tumble

like little paper skiffs

down the fountain’s stone curlicues.

 

Unkempt, autumnal, the grass

hides wonders. A tiny spider

explores her continents of green,

a banded wasp forages

among fallen twigs,

 

just by my grounded eye.

I frog-kick my way up

through fathoms of discarded dreams

to the leaf-litter of the day.

 

 

Mandy Macdonald

 

My America by Mandy Macdonald

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